Advances in wireless technology have led to the emergence of a wide range of wireless and radio access technologies. Because of the time and cost involved in developing wireless systems, today's manufacturers typically focus on implementations using the globally-harmonized public frequency bands (which represent only a fraction of the total frequency bands available for this type of communication). Indeed, studies conducted by regulatory bodies in various countries have revealed that most of the private radio frequency spectrum is inefficiently utilized as a result of the unavailability of wireless equipment that functions properly in these bands.
Developers of modern wireless communication systems are working towards enabling the operation of these systems within a wide frequency spectrum. A broad frequency range of operation and configurability of operating parameters for these wide frequency systems is contingent upon the design of an RF front end (i.e., the interface between the antenna and the transmitter/receiver) that functions over a wide frequency spectrum.